Ambassador Peter W. Bodde told ABC News today it has been hard to pin down an exact number for the missing.

“We get information, or families show concern that someone might be missing,” Bodde said. “We immediately start putting them into our database and look at what information we have.”

The U.S. Embassy in Kathmandu has received more than 1,000 inquiries about Americans in the country and has accounted for more than 500 of those people, spokeswoman Susan Parker-Burns said today. While that leaves nearly 500 inquiries unresolved, Parker-Burns said the list could contain some erroneous inquiries or duplicate names.